This week the Times’s Frank Bruni reminds everyone about Oceana (pictured), that fancy three star “seafood restaurant in Midtown that looks like an ocean liner.” After more than fifteen years in business, he says it’s still “very much worth boarding.” And save room for dessert, which is “splendid.” The frozen banana mousse, “presented with both sticky rice and puffed, caramelized rice, [is] the transmogrification of a bowl of Rice Krispies with bananas into dessert, and......

Video of "Meat and You: Partners in Freedom" from The Simpsons episode, Lisa the Vegetarian After the Humane Society revealed a tape of mistreatment of cows at the nation's "No. 2 supplier of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program," burgers and other beef products were temporarily yanked off NYC schools' menus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had put an "administrative hold" on all products from Hallmark Meat Packing Packing in Chino, CA......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: person under train in Brooklyn, stabbing on the Upper West Side, shootout in the Bronx, and shots fired at Sheepshead Bay High School. There are 12,779 yellow cabs in NYC-- plus "an additional 22,900 car-service vehicles, 10,400 'black cars,' and 4,200 limousines." DeMarco's Pizza, scene of the Greenwich Village shooting last week, opened unexpectedly this weekend-- the owners had said it would be closed down for good. An anonymous......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a wall collapse in Park Slope, a suspicious package in midtown, and a jumper down in the Meat Packing District. Sentenced to death, Ronell Wilson doesn't want his attorneys to appeal, saying he doesn't want to put his family through another trial The school-bus fiasco continues today, with Betsy Gotbaum announcing an official investigation, and the Post revealing that the consulting firm of Alvarez & Marshall got a $16......

Streetsblog has been covering the hell out of the livable streets movement in NYC. That includes everything from reducing traffic congestion to opposing huge developments like the Atlantic Yards. Check out these links they sent in this week: 1. Bus Rapid Transit Corridors The idea of BRTCs is that the bus gets its own lane, with a mile or two between stops. The cops police these lanes to keep other cars out. Today, the city......

-- Fear of an all slav planet: Menhanata has been denied a liquor license and may have to shut down! -- The new Aroma coffee shop on Houston cost $2m to build-- and they still have to pay $30k per month for their 650 "square meter" space! -- A homeless man saved the life of a police sergeant who got hit by a car yesterday. -- You think you've got family problems: one of......

We came to win. We were prepared for the challenges they laid before us. Blind wines…bring it. Guess the spices…we came to play. Decorate the cookie…we’ll take down the pastry chefs. This was our mantra. Dirty or fair, we had one goal and that was to win the 2nd Annual Duckathlon sponsored by D’Artagnan. Clearly there was a miscount, because team Mother Ducker didn’t win, although we did steal the duck bacon prize from team......

Oh bless you, Kevin Walsh-- without your magical work at Forgotten-NY, we'd never learn about out-of-the-way neighborhoods like Harding Park in the Bronx. For those of you who aren't familiar with the area (that should be just about everyone-- we asked a Bronx old-timer if he knew where Harding Park was, and he had no idea), the neighborhood is just across the East River from Riker's Island, near the mouth of the Bronx River.......

With the summer heat suddenly upon us in full force, most people are doing whatever possible to avoid the humid recesses of the subway as much as possible. However, for anyone who hasn't quite yet got their fill, there's the Bohen Foundation's site-specific installation End Station, which recreates a New York City subway in the foundation's basement. The artists, a team called Elmgreen + Dragset, have indicated that the installation is intended as a......

Tomorrow afternoon, Gothamist is participating in the NYC Bike Month by leading a tour of prominent graffiti sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens- Mike of Satan's Laundromat will co-host. Stops will include Chelsea, the Meat Packing District, SoHo, LES, DUMBO, the Navy Yard, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint, before ending at 5 Points in Long Island City. We leave from The north side of Union Square Park, at 11AM. Bring a bike or rollerblades- and a......

So The Village was number one at the box office this weekend (box office nerd fact: on the same weekend two years ago, Signs made $60 million). What Gothamist took most comfort in were all the stories or references to "village idiot," from Michael Agger's examination of M. Night Shyamalan's directing style on Slate (Agger's verdict: M. Night ain't all that) to Adrien Brody's actual character in the film, because the Village Idiot (the bar)......

In these tight economic times, the Daily News tries to give its readers some advice on how to save money in New York, like going to the Meat Packing district for cheap meat, or going to the Flower district for well-priced flora. While Gothamist nods and says, "Great ideas, we'll save [-] much money," the truth is that like most New Yorkers, it's only a steal when it's a sample sale or Barneys warehouse sale......